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Martha, Oprah ... Gwyneth?

MULTITASKER Gwyneth Paltrow won an Oscar, and she now has a Web site and fingers in fitness and food, including a cookbook in progress.Credit
John Ueland

THE black leather hot pants were a far cry from the pink Ralph Lauren gown she wore when accepting her Oscar for “Shakespeare in Love” in 1999. But there she was — Gwyneth Paltrow — at the Sunshine Cinema on the Lower East Side in the middle of February, for the opening of her latest drama, “Two Lovers.”

While her leading man, Joaquin Phoenix, sporting a Rasputin beard and sunglasses, glowered and squirmed from the attention, she posed with the impeccable grace of an actress known for her good upbringing and Upper East Side education at the Spence School. She told one reporter she was catching a flight later that night to get home to London. She told another who asked about her Valentine’s Day plans that her husband, Chris Martin of the band Coldplay, was on tour so it would be just her and the children, Apple, 4, and Moses, 2, on the holiday of love.

When the film was over, so was she — off to the airport.

Even for recessionary times, it was a strangely modest premiere for a film starring an Oscar-winning actress. But then, “Two Lovers,” after a lukewarm reception in Cannes last May, is playing with limited distribution here. The media, it seems, are not fussing a whole lot about Ms. Paltrow’s latest role, even though she plays a conflicted mistress with masterful aplomb.

That doesn’t mean she isn’t being discussed.

In recent months, she has been scrutinized sharply in various newspapers and on many blogs for her surprising and broad-ranging forays into the arenas of lifestyle guru-dom, from fitness to cooking.

In September, Ms. Paltrow appeared on “Oprah” to show off her post-pregnancy workout routine, then proceeded to mystify audiences by appearing with Mario Batali, the chef, in the PBS series “Spain ... on the Road Again,” where she drank soy milk and followed her quasi-vegan diet while others pigged out on pork. A few months later, Publishers Weekly announced that she had sold a cookbook proposal about the pleasures of cooking for the family. Then, it was announced that she was partnering with her (and Madonna’s) trainer, Tracy Anderson, to open a gym in TriBeCa.

The enterprise attracting the most media sniping right now? Goop.com, a lifestyle Web site and e-mail introduced in September that hits subscribers’ in-boxes on Thursdays with tips like “police your thoughts” and “eliminate white foods.” The site’s name is derived from Ms. Paltrow’s initials, and its slogan, “Nourish the Inner Aspect,” positions it deeply in the New Age realm.

Recent issues have offered tips on family harmony from a leader of the kabbalah community, cozy mothering anecdotes (and the revelation that her children call adults “grownies”) and a graphic regimen for detoxifying the body. Ms. Paltrow has recommended expensive hotels, restaurants and jewelry and offered tips on getting reservations at two of the Momofuku restaurants that don’t, in fact, take reservations. She has also given out recipes for banana-nut muffins, steamed peas and garlic bread. While the site does have its loyal fans, many critics find the enterprise fatuous and a bit puzzling.

“Why is it called Goop?” a writer for The Globe and Mail in Toronto sniped. “Perhaps ‘Any Old Load of Rubbish’ and ‘Learn From Me, Ungrateful Peasant’ were both taken.”

Beth Wareham, director of lifestyle books at Scribner and the editor of “The Joy of Cooking,” wondered aloud about Ms. Paltrow’s qualifications as a chef. “Does the world really need another banana muffin recipe?” she asked. “I think someone like Gwyneth Paltrow would be better at telling people what not to eat.”

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EATING OUT With the chef Mario Batali in Spain on PBS.Credit
Public Television

But in a culture that has given us Jane Fonda workout tapes, Paul Newman salad dressing, fashion and perfumes from J. Lo, Madonna children’s books, and furniture and clothing by the Olsen twins, why is Ms. Paltrow the victim of such ridicule? Maybe it’s because the public still remembers the graceful girl from a nice New York family who handled early roles in “Emma” and “Shakespeare in Love” with a perfect English accent, and pulled off impeccable aristocratic froideur in “The Talented Mr. Ripley.”

As the current model for Tod’s, the Italian luxury brand, she looks at home lounging around like Grace Kelly — outdoorsy and to the manner born. It seems that despite several lowbrow films, an aura of pleasant and tasteful hauteur remains. So why is she suddenly on TV giving dieting and fitness tips, backing a gym, writing a cookbook and an online newsletter full of shopping advice, kabbalistic musings and discussion of the Master Cleanse?

It is a question that Ms. Paltrow declined to answer for this article. Stephen Huvane, her publicist, said by e-mail that it would be “premature” to discuss her lifestyle ventures.

“Her cookbook is not expected to be ready until fall of 2010, the exercise studio that she is partnered in is still under construction and Goop is still a work in progress,” Mr. Huvane wrote.

Editors involved in the Web site and cookbook also would not discuss Ms. Paltrow’s projects — unsurprising given the cone of silence that comes down around stars.

One Goop contributor, Karen Binder-Brynes, a New York City psychologist, described how every few weeks she gets an e-mail message from an editor in London, who asks her to write on topics like pessimism and giving thanks.

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“I Google myself and find people are blogging about it, but it’s mostly this backlash against poor Gwyneth,” Ms. Binder-Brynes said. “But I think what she’s doing is great, and she’s getting ready for her next phase of life.”

So is the criticism of Ms. Paltrow justified?

“I don’t think so,” said Matti Leshem, the owner of a Hollywood branding company called Protagonist, who said that all Ms. Paltrow is doing is marketing her upscale taste and holistic consciousness to a willing audience. “But if she’s smart, she’ll take all the vitriol and learn from it.”

The question is, why bother putting herself out there so boldly? Is it possible that with her homes in London and the Hamptons, and a husband who, while a star, has to share his profits with a four-member band, she actually needs to find new ways of working her brand to make money?

James Gray, who directed Ms. Paltrow in “Two Lovers,” sounds as puzzled as anyone else. “I think she’s a brilliant actress, but it’s weird all the attention from the film right now has been diverted by her Web site,” he said in an interview.

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DAY JOB At the premiere of her latest drama, Two Lovers.Credit
John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times

Ms. Paltrow does take her acting very seriously, Mr. Gray said. “I was concerned that she wouldn’t be invested in the work, but she was wonderful,” he said. “At a certain point I asked if she missed acting, and she said she wanted to come back to it and that it was important to her as an artist, but that there aren’t that many roles and she doesn’t get enough scripts.”

“It’s interesting,” he added, “because she doesn’t seem to care that much about stardom and fame. She cares about her kids.”

Ms. Paltrow, 36, whose next role will be as Pepper Potts, the saucy sidekick in the “Iron Man” sequel, has told the news media that she doesn’t want to be away from her children more than once a year to make movies. In particular, starring roles can be too time-consuming. She has also said that roles aren’t as plentiful when an actress gets into her late 30s (though some of her contemporaries, like Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett and Jennifer Connelly, might dispute this).

And while Ms. Paltrow may have appeared in some memorable clunkers — “Shallow Hal” and “View From the Top” come to mind — her acting career is hardly moribund. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for “Proof” in 2005, and is, according to Internet reports, scheduled to play Regan in a movie version of “King Lear” together with Anthony Hopkins and Keira Knightley. Her brand as a style icon also remains strong. In addition to her endorsement deal with Tod’s, Ms. Paltrow has a deal with Estée Lauder. To most it would seem more than enough.

“But maybe because she isn’t doing a ton of movies, she’s trying harder to keep herself relevant,” said Dany Levy, the founder of DailyCandy, the online style newsletter that may have inspired Goop — and that was sold for $125 million to Comcast last year. “Magazines are filled with what celebrities like to do, eat and buy, so why shouldn’t she try doing it herself?”

Perhaps because the criticism has gotten so shrill. Last month, The Daily Beast, Tina Brown’s Web site, joined in on taking Ms. Paltrow down for her Marie-Antoinette-like tone-deafness to the times. The Huffington Post likened her literary recommendations (Charlotte Brontë, Dostoyevsky) to a high school reading list.

“People get a hit of energy when they are negative about something,” Ms. Paltrow responded last month in USA Today, when asked about being mocked for Goop. “And they do not understand why they do not have a happy life.”

It’s the kind of statement better left to a guru than an It Girl.

But will Ms. Paltrow weather all the criticism as she descends from her cinematic ivory tower? Will she figure out how to use her brand of privilege and holistic chic to muscle in on Oprah and Martha?

Hard to say. But she does have a big fan in her friend Mario Batali.

“She has a great sense of proportion,” he wrote by e-mail about her cooking, “which gives her food a natural balance.”

The same could be said about her work as an actress in “Two Lovers.” But who needs to discuss that when there’s Goop?